While the rise of remote work has been touted as good for the environment, a recent piece in Fast Company says that the reality could be a little more complicated. On the one hand, people don't commute as much, and the office itself uses less power because there's fewer people. On the other, remote workers are using more power at home, doing things like keeping the air conditioner on all day versus just when they get back home. In this respect, some suspect that there has been little net change in this arena, and that the rise of telework hasn't so much reduced emissions overall but shifted them around. Instead of one office consuming a lot of power, it's thousands of small offices each consuming a little more power than usual. And so while a company might claim it's reduced its carbon footprint by switching to remote work, it might only be doing so through essentially ignoring the increased electricity demands of their telecommuting employees.

Studies vary in their conclusions, though, which Fast Company said is the result of there not being a single definitive way to measure climate risks and environmental impacts. With this in mind, it can be difficult to assess the specific effect of telework, given the wide variety of methodologies people are using.